NEW -Tiny Quilt Challenge (American Made Brand) - designed one quilt, waiting for the fabric... I won't be able to share the final project (maybe more than one) until October, but I will show some sneak peeks as soon as I started putting the project together!!

I will draw a winner (using random.org) on July 1st between all the new entries in the link party.

International participants are welcome!!

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And before leaving, I would love to hear some comments from you about this series!

Because there are many people subscribed to the mailing list, many people download the tutorial files but very very few links are added in the link party below :( :(

So if you can spend 5 minutes of your time answeringfew questions in this survey I would really appreciate!! The survey is anonymous so you can tell me what you think without extra pressure ;)

As of mid June, this is the situation in terms of subscribers, downloads and projects in the series (excluding mine):

I am a scientist, so I tried to produce a formal figure that illustrate the participation in the series :)

It does not accurately account for the data (numbers do not sum up, because people not subscribing to the mailing list could download the tutorials, one person may download the same file multiple times, etc.), however the overall trend is so huge, that even considering all possible errors in representing the data, the message seems pretty clear to me :(

I received very few answers in the survey and of the people entering their opinion, only 3 elaborated with text on their reason not to linking their projects. Once I collect more opinions, I will answer to those issues publicly, but if you don't tell me what you think, I cannot know if there is anything I can do to make this series more fun for all of you...

I am having a ton of fun making all these projects and learning a lot... I hope you are doing the same!!

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Susan (quiltfabrication.blogspot.com) is hosting a fun Quilt Along (Spangled Stars)!!
Last week I finished the top, but I realized the piece of fabric I wanted to use for the back was just not wide enough :( So what did I do? I decided to use some of the blocks I received in my Block Swap Adventure swap and add them on the back! I picked the blocks that didn't fit too well with the others I have... nothing wrong with these blocks, but they are just not the right color or motif to play well with others... but they are great in a scrappy sampler pieced back, right?

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Few more blocks for my D wall hanging! Blocks from the book "A Quilter's Ark". These are soooooo simple, that it takes me more time to pull the fabric from my stash than to assemble the blocks!

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And last, but not least I am making Stan for my Memory quilt 2!
If you don't know who Stan is, you MUST check out this video

He is the most hilarious pixel character ever designed ;) I absolutely love how he keeps moving his arms and the plaid jacket is static!! :) :) old school animation!!

Anyway, I made it following Susan tutorial for the SYS series (with my own twists, as I didn't want to cut the 1050 squares, 1 inch unfinished, that compose the piece).

That is NOT a giant penny... those are tiny squares, 0.5 inches finished!!

I am very excited to see this block completed!!

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How about you? What are YOU up to?
Link it here and share it with me!!

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Susan (quiltfabrication.blogspot.com) is hosting a fun Quilt Along (Spangled Stars)!!
I joined at the beginning of the moth and in about 10 days I assembled the entire quilt top! Kudos to me considering that I usually don't like these "assembly line, quick quilts designs"!! :)

But I absolutely love this design... the striking thing for me is that one block (the bar block) is the one that has more units in the entire quilt, but it is so simple that it "blends in" and it doesn't take over the design. But since it's so simple and fast, it makes the entire quilt very easy to make!!

Yes, I didn't iron it yet... it's too big, I will iron it when the batting comes and I am ready to quilt it!

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As I said, I went back on the cows :) and made another "cow face" block (resized to be 5'') and a couple of other animal blocks from the book "A Quilter's Ark". These are soooooo simple, that it takes me more time to pull the fabric from my stash than to assemble the blocks!

The other project I worked on is my Mirror Mirror Afghan (using the tapestry crochet technique)

16''x22'' front and back

This is going to be the other half of my main central panel for the afghan! I really like the way it turned out! I already designed the next block, go me!!
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Finally I made the block for Dagmar (for the Block Swap Adventure): she asked for a star block and she said scrappy is welcome. So making my "Water Lilies" quilt I ended up with extra HST and the other unit with triangles in... and when I googled for a star block pattern I found the one below that uses exactly the units I had! so this is the block I will send her (hope she likes it)

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How about you? What are YOU up to?
Link it here and share it with me!!

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Susan (quiltfabrication.blogspot.com) is hosting a fun Quilt Along (Spangled Stars)!!
I joined last week and this week I almost caught up to the current step (which is technically the last step before assembly). So I pretty much assembled the entire quilt top in one week! Kudos to me!! :)

Actually I am still working on finishing several blocks, but I post on Saturdays so I wanted to get this post done before finishing all the blocks! :)

It takes me a little more time to stitch my blocks together because I am making it very scrappy and with a gradient colored background, so I cannot use the fast and useful tips that Susan gives in her tutorials (most of the times).

I found out that cutting several pieces of any specific measure (either 2, 2.5 or the weird measures with quarters and 7/8s) is a nightmare for me :) just because I keep forgetting what the measure is, where to find it on my ruler, sometimes I turn the ruler the wrong way (using that extra half-inch side, or not)... anyway... I found a super easy trick to solve that problem. It not my idea, I saw it online somewhere but I don't know where... anyway this is the trick

Several layers (typically 3-4) of painters tape on the back of the ruler at the desired measure! The layers of tape create a nice "bump" on the back of the ruler so that you can just slide the ruler on the edge of the fabric and it will stop exactly at that point, and then it's easy to cut and go on with another cut! You don't have to remember what the measure is... whatever it is, it is where the tape is! and you can reposition it very easily and several times!!

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The only other project I worked on is my Mirror Mirror Afghan (using the tapestry crochet technique)

16''x22'' front and back

This is going to be my main central panel for the afghan! I really like the way it turned out... looking forward to start the other block (with inverted colors!)

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How about you? What are YOU up to?
Link it here and share it with me!!

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

We are going to get our sewing machine a little break again, and our crochet hooks out!

The fifth tutorial of the series is brought you by the wonderful Karen (theshtickido).

This is a super simple and fun pattern that allows you to get familiar with the basics of the amigurumi technique. The Pet Rock family is fun and very versatile: play around with eyes and mouth to create infinite cute little stuffed friends!!

The pdf (links below) contains instructions and additional links to resources that can help you find similar patterns to grow the population of cute amigurumi! But be careful... they are highly addictive!! :) :)